


another time, another muse

by harajukucrepes



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 09:11:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7612303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harajukucrepes/pseuds/harajukucrepes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Keiji decided to retire some few decades later, he would always remember about the time when old, reliable Yamiji-san had decided to retire and young, unpredictable Bokuto-san was appointed as his new editor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	another time, another muse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keptein](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keptein/gifts).



> Hope you like this! 
> 
> Here's a companion [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvtYr0n358w), and a guide to [Kamakura](http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2166.html), both not required, but they were the center of this piece, so use if you like!
> 
> (30th Showa is 1955)

*

 

another time, another muse

 

*

 

Old, reliable Yamiji-san decided to retire from being a literary editor in the 30th year of Showa. He told Keiji that he was already due for it anyway, now that it had been ten years after the war and all the young blood were good enough to take over.

“Our nation needs more young blood, Keiji,” he had said, “and less of old people like me.”

Keiji was a little sad, because after all, old Yamiji-san had been like a father to him. He was the one who had read Keiji’s first poem and told him that he should write more. He was also the one who later read Keiji’s first book and told him that he would get this published. You have such a way with thoughts that makes you seem so wise, he had said to Keiji.

He was a little sad, a little heavy in the heart, but also, just a tiny bit, a little excited.

 

*

 

When Keiji was told that he would have a young man as his new editor, he couldn’t be more surprised. He was expecting someone like Sakamoto-san, who had taken the habit of following Yamiji-san around, presumably to take over him when he retired. A young, easily-excitable new editor really did seem like an odd choice of an editor for Keiji, when his works were all about the ideals of old clashing with the struggles of the new world. He was pretty sure things were going to get a little weird, but he accepted anyway. Didn’t Yamiji-san often tell him that he would do well no matter who would manage him, because Keiji’s works didn’t need an editor to be good?

Keiji didn’t think that his new editor would travel all the way to Kamakura to meet him, but when Sakamoto-san said that Bokuto-san would be coming in a week, he couldn’t help anticipating it.

 

*

 

Bokuto-san brought with him a wind chime from Okinawa, apparently he just returned from a trip there with this up-and-coming author named Oikawa. Keiji had heard of him before, he won some award for this piece of short story about friendship between two boys centered around their volleyball practices in school. It was apparently highly-lauded for a groundbreaking realism in portraying hormonal teenagers—a pretty strange description of a story about two boys in love, Keiji thought.

As he hung the wind chime above the window in his writing room, Keiji remembered about the owl he usually saw hanging around the plum tree in the garden at night and how Bokuto-san strangely resembled it.

Sakamoto-san told him that Bokuto-san would be a “spirited young fellow”, so Keiji had been expecting someone earnest, albeit slightly nervous but definitely curious, but Bokuto-san was, well, the only explanation Keiji could think of was that Sakamoto-san probably didn’t know how to explain the kind of youthful energy that seemed to ascend curiosity.

In spite of it, Keiji decided that he could like Bokuto-san, because Bokuto-san, above all, liked him and his works, and for Keiji, if he was good enough for old, retired, Yamiji-san, he would be good enough for Keiji.

 

*

 

Bokuto-san visited again three months later, even though Keiji had written to him to tell that he wasn’t done with the yet untitled story of his about a young girl and a statue of Buddha as tall as she was that she carried around as a divine punishment. Bokuto-san said that it didn’t matter, he just came from Yokohama and got some gifts for Keiji.

Keiji let Bokuto-san read his unfinished story and asked, is this a little too dark? Is this a little too strange? Bokuto-san had given some him some inputs on his past stories, the ones edited and published, but he had never read Keiji’s incomplete stories, so Keiji thought that it would be a good opportunity to test him out. At least if he would be able to tell if Bokuto-san could see the difference that Yamiji-san was capable of making.

To his surprise, Bokuto-san’s eyes started quivering and his body started shaking, then he turned around with his back against Keiji.

“Akaashi…...you……” Somewhat Keiji wasn’t expecting anything constructive, judging by the way Bokuto-san was clenching his fists. There could only be two possible outcomes: one; if Bokuto-san found his draft appallingly awful, which was most likely the best possible outcome even if it meant that Keiji would have a hard time getting anything published hereon and two; if Bokuto-san found his story to be too disturbing for the masses, which wouldn’t be a terrible outcome, only he would probably need to speak to the publisher on getting a more genre-compatible editor if they wanted him to continue writing.

But Bokuto-san instead cried in between sobs, grabbed Keiji’s shoulders to shake him hard as though he was trying to lift him off the ground.

“This is genius! This is magnificent! This is everything I have wanted to read ever since I first read your latest book! Akaashi, you’re amazing!”

For years, Keiji wasn’t able to tell what he felt at that moment when Bokuto-san had said that to him. He felt as though he should be feeling elated that a pair of educated eyes were acknowledging his works, but Bokuto-san had a way of making every gesture seem exaggerated and as much as Keiji blamed it on him being more accustomed to the more constrained Yamiji-san, he couldn’t help feeling as though having Bokuto-san as his editor was a little like summer coming right after the first snowfall.

 

*

 

A few months later, Bokuto-san sent him a telegram to say that his new story, _The Girl with Buddha On Her Back_ , had been submitted to be considered as a nominee for the Naoki Prize. Keiji was shocked, he wasn’t writing it with eyes on the prize, so he wrote back to say thank you, secretly wishing that Bokuto-san had told him about it earlier, at least he could have written something better.

It wasn’t as though he didn’t appreciate Bokuto-san’s efforts, but he wondered if Bokuto-san understood writers well enough to know that most writers could end up hating their own work for no real reason.

 

*

 

Unlike old, retired Yamiji-san, Bokuto-san had all the energy in the world to make frequent trips to Kamukura to check on Keiji. After _The Girl with Buddha On Her Back_ , Keiji realised that he still had the residual religious muse lingering around, so this time around he might write something Izanagi and Izanami, to the delight of Bokuto-san.

It was spring and the sight of Kamakura bathed in cherry blossom petals was too hard for Bokuto-san to resist, so he decided to stay with Keiji for the season. What better way to know his authors than to spend some time with them and understand their muses?

Keiji tried to argue that Kamakura was probably a little too subdued for someone like Bokuto-san. All they had here were the temples and the shrines and the sea, but Bokuto-san insisted.

Apparently, if a place like Kamakura could give birth to someone like Akaashi, it must be an amazing place.

Upon hearing that, Keiji felt as though he was starting to understand the way Bokuto-san’s mind worked.

 

*

 

As Keiji had expected, Bokuto-san soon lost interest in the temples and the shrines and chose the sea as his favourite location.

He tried to drag Keiji to Enoshima Island every few days, but Keiji told him that it was supposed to be an exploration of Keiji’s muses, not Bokuto-san’s favourite places.

Upon hearing that, Bokuto-san spent the next few days lying around in Keiji’s office, trying his best to not “be a disturbance” to Keiji’s “solitude of choice”.

(He was quoting from _The Girl with Buddha On Her Back_.)

 

*

 

Again, as expected, Bokuto-san could only last so long rolling around books before he finally gave in and begged another time for a trip to Enoshima Island, to which Keiji woefully agreed to, only if he would let him finish this one story that he was writing, which incidentally, became so distant from his original idea of Izanagi and Izanami that he somewhat felt a little ashamed for subjecting Bokuto-san to all the shrine trips.

Bokuto-san was so happy that it managed to sustain him for the rest of the spring that he could an entire day just playing with the neighbourhood kids and collecting postcards. He still did some work though, because there had been a rise in the amount of writers in Kamakura and surrounding areas.

He spent so much time walking in and out of Keiji’s writing room that Keji eventually had learnt to sense his arrival just by the soft ringing of the wind chime, the very same that Bokuto-san had given him on their first meeting.

 

*

 

When spring ended, Bokuto-san took Keiji’s latest novel manuscript, _The Loop of Human Sacrifices_ , and started packing back to Tokyo. Bokuto-san evidently didn’t like _Sacrifices_ , because to him, it was so ordinary in its attempts to be realistic that it lost its novelty. Keiji thought Bokuto-san was reading too much into things and was probably just underwhelmed.

It wasn’t a very amicable parting, because Bokuto-san kept insisting on returning _Sacrifices_ to Keiji. It wasn’t like he could really bring a manuscript over to Tokyo anyway, because the publisher was so pleased with _The Girl with Buddha On Her Back_ that they were expecting something along that style, the thinly-veiled preachings with reimagined religious themes. It was bound to face rejection anyway, but Keiji managed to convince him to take it with him.

There was only so much that Keiji could say to tell Bokuto-san that authors were not factories.

 

*

 

Spring then turned into summer, when the air was still and humid and the wind chime hardly moved.

The owl that resembled Bokuto-san had started appearing more in Bokuto-san’s absence. Keiji was starting to wonder if it was coincidental.

 

*

 

One day in summer, when the day suddenly became so breezy that the wind chime was all Keiji heard the entire day, Bokuto-san came unannounced, bringing with him an “absolutely amazing news” that he didn’t want to send through a telegram.

It looked like _The Girl with Buddha On Her Back_ had been shortlisted for the Naoki Prize. The judging panel was reportedly very, very, delighted by the originality of the prose, and they decided that it was Keiji’s best work ever.

It was both a blessing and a curse that Keiji decided to not retain a copy of _The Loop of Human Sacrifices_ , because he suddenly felt as though he could fix it to be closer to his original vision of the story, so he rewrote it from the very beginning.

 

*

 

Two weeks later, just right before Bokuto-san had to leave for Nagoya, Keiji handed him a new version of _The Loop of Human Sacrifices_ , this time around sincerely asking for Bokuto-san’s honest opinion. Bokuto-san was so touched that he accidentally revealed that he didn’t send the original manuscript to the publishers.

Somewhat Keiji felt thankful, and before Bokuto-san left, he said to Keiji:

“Hey Akaashi, just...write what feels good, alright?”

Perhaps Keiji was too used to relying on old, retired Yamiji-san that his works aged along with him, but Bokuto-san had brought with him some sort of curiosity that only youth could afford, and for that, he would forever thank Yamiji-san for choosing Bokuto-san as his successor.

Not that he would tell Bokuto-san that. For now, he would find a time to tell Bokuto-san that he had become a part of Keiji’s muses.

 

*

 

When Keiji decided to retire some few decades later, he would always remember about that time when old, reliable Yamiji-san had decided to retire and young, unpredictable Bokuto-san was appointed as his new editor. He would always remember about the tale of that story that won the Naoki Prize, and the editor who believed in it before the author did.

He could also tell the tale about the author who fell in love with his spirited young fellow of an editor in at least ten different styles, but that would be for another time.

 

*


End file.
